There’s no friendship between us to generate an act of forbearance, and it’s unlikely that I’ll respond tolerantly. Indeed,it’s unlikely that justice demands it. Or suppose that I have committed some grave injustice. The wrong done is serious, the goods lost are substantial, and the act itself is public in two senses—everyone knows what I have done and our shared life is harmed in the doing. Betrayed a trust, drove under the influence, fudged the numbers, trampled the weak, ignored the needy, and so on: something along these lines. My friends will certainly correct me, but they are also likely to help me bear the burdens of my injustice, neither forsaking my company nor denying me their love. Others may not be so generous. Acquaintances may tolerate my presence in whatever common life we share, even as I am corrected and restrained by public justice, or so one hopes. But it’s unlikely that they will be able to marshal a more robust endurance of my company, and it5s not clear that they must. Without a friendship that already unites us, why should they?